TV review: The world is a better place because of people like Joe Conlan

In strait-laced 1970s Ireland, a man in a dress was a nod to anyone and everyone that there is more to people than meets the eye

Legendary Gaiety Panto Dame Joe Conlan as Nana Potts. Photographer: Leon Farrell / Photocall Ireland

The best thing about having kids is you have an excuse to go to the panto again.

I can remember going to the Opera House in Cork in the early 1970s – my mother probably thought it was posh. I have even fonder memories of going to the local panto in the Municipal Hall in Kinsale, local bus driver Finbarr Hurley bringing the house down as the dame. We all agreed he was better than Billa O’Connell in the big city.